A lot of people see acrylic water pipes as throw away pieces and inferior to glass bongs mainly because of cleaning and maintaining them but with a trip to your kitchen and bathroom you can get some simple ingredients and tools for maintaining a smooth smoking, spotless and non-smelling acrylic piece. What you will need is: 2 or 3 old toothbrushes. Grease removing or normal dish washing soap/liquid. A zink, tub or bucket with warm water (NOT boiling or hot water, just luke warm. Boiling water may release acrylic chemicals and no medical or recreational users want any of that) Prepare your warm water with some dish washing soap/liquid next dismantle your bong and submerge it for about 5 to 10mins after put some extra soap on your old toothbrush and start scrubbing all that nasty resin loose and rinse it down the drain. Next use your second brush to scrub any remaining resin add soap if needed and rinse again. By now you should have a pretty clean piece if not keep scrubbing add more soap if needed. Now the 3rd brush is more for polishing your bong and removing any remaining smells. After you are done rinse with cool clean water and enjoy your almost like new acrylic piece. If you have a funky piece with hard-to-reach places use an old coat hanger with cloth fixed at the end (rubber bands or even electrical tape works) bend it to the shape and angle required and scrub. For your metal stem and bowl you can use normal 90%+ iso alcohol or any other cleaning agent mentioned on this site just rinse afterwards and keep those chemicals AWAY from your bong trust me i used acetone on my old acrylic and it melted into a puddle of sticky goo. The key to keeping your acrylic piece clean and fresh is to clean it regularly, the less resin build up the easier it is to clean. Take care of your piece and it will take care of you. Thanks for reading Grass City and remember; don't drink and drive, smoke and fly.
Thank you for this! I myself always use this method whilst cleaning my acrylic piece that still serves me faithfully as my glass pieces do.
Awesome suggestions, but don't wash resin down the drain or toilet if ya can. If ya have a septic system you can accidentally clog the fuck outta it. Even with a centralized system you can still clog your houses pipes. If ya can try to scoop it out and throw it away. Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk
I have 2 and just using a brush from a local head shop (looks like a vegetable washing brush or any plastic bristled brush) with dish soap and warm water works, just a dash of soap then use the sprayer to fill up the piece, and scrub with the brush. once in a while i use piece cleaner and let it soak but water, soap and brush works 99% of the time.
Acrylic in this case is most likely PMMA. Which is acetone soluble. You didn't melt your bong, you dissolved it. PMMA in general is insoluble in alcohols. IPA should be perfectly safe to use on it. Though this doesn't apply to all copolymers of PMMA. Acetone, chloroform, cyanoacrylate, n-chloroethane, MEK are all excellent solvents for "acrylic" though none of that shit has any business being in the same room as your bong. Never mind using them as cleaning agents. Also household detergents that contain some sort of chlorine or ammonia as a cleaning agent will deteriorate the acrylic. And last but not least there is a type of mold that 'eats' PMMA and PC based acrylics. So you can clean an acrylic bong almost exactly the same as a glass bong. With IPA and warm water (<70C). You just need to do it more often, because of the mold risk.